Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT has availed about 200 000 stands in Harare in the past three decades and focus must now shift on addressing infrastructure challenges in new suburbs, like water and sewer systems, a renowned town planner has said. In an interview yesterday, Mr Percy Toriro, who is a local government expert, said the job for the new Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Cde July Moyo was to address the infrastructure deficit.

“The last 10 years are probably the only years over the past 40 to 50 years of the development of our urban areas that we have delivered as many stands,” he said. “Random numbers will tell you that in Caledonia, there are 31 000 stands. In Harare North, Hatcliffe and those areas, there are probably 50 000 stands.

“In Harare South there are probably 100 000 stands. In Harare West that belts Dzivarasekwa and so on, there are about 50 000 stands. One can actually argue that over the past 30 to 40 years there have been as many stands as the stands that formed the original Harare that was existing.”

Mr Toriro said this presented a huge challenge of infrastructure for water, sewerage, roads and electricity. “City of Harare itself as the local authority has to address the bigger sewerage treatment issues,” he said. “Where do you take the sewerage coming from these areas?

“That is infrastructure at a higher level, but there is also infrastructure at a lower level because there has to be internal reticulation of those systems within the new settlements. There is a bit of water pipes which are in place, but in most of them there is no sewerage, there are no trunk roads, there are no treatment plants at local level. One approach that can be taken is treatment can be localised. There are several ways of looking at it.”

Mr Toriro said the cheapest could be ordinary ponds, but local authorities could go for the modern Biological Nutrient removal system. He said before the Harare sewage system collapsed, Firle Sewerage Treatment Works was the biggest and most modern sewerage treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. It was capable of treating water to a point where it was clean enough to be discharged into rivers.

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey